Dailies
by Captain Hilts
Summary: A series of short stories that takes a peek into the domestic lives of The Avengers. Tony struggles playing house with Pepper, Clint is granted a rare day of leave and finds out a well-kept secret about Natasha, Thor and Bruce bond over technology, and as usual, Steve brings the group together, even when he isn't trying to.
1. Stark and Potts

Author's note: This little idea came to me randomly, like so many of them do haha, and I figured it would be interesting to take a peek a the more mundane lives of The Avengers and how it is they deal with certain things like boredom, relationships, and each other. Enjoy!

* * *

Pepper had asked him to clean up the house three times already and it had started at breakfast. She was tired of stepping on crumbs. Tony had no idea what the hell she was talking about, because he didn't make anything that left crumbs and he ate his chips and things in the workshop, even though he shouldn't. (He'd sectioned off an area for foodstuffs, just to keep Bruce from making his grumpy old man face whenever he visited). But Pepper was persistent. She was tired of having to sweep the floor. Did he want to make her feel like a housewife, the woman who ran his company?

And apparently making Happy do it instead was cheating.

So, while Pepper was at one of her super boring but important CEO meetings, Tony holed himself up in the workshop for two hours and created the solution to all of his cleanliness problems. He made popcorn, turned on some trash tv, and let the issue resolve itself.

Pepper came home a few hours later. She found him asleep in front of the flatscreen in his shorts and wife beater in the middle of the day with a spilled bowl of popcorn on the floor. An episode of _Ancient Aliens_ was on. Thor would've loved it.

"Tony!"

He was up with a jolt. A few puffs of popcorn tumbled down his chest. He frowned at them, realized what they were, and then popped a few in his mouth. Pepper crossed her arms and scowled at him. It was a cute scowl, but he was not going to tell her that. It just made her mad. He didn't want the feminism talk. Again.

"This place looks worse than I left it," Pepper told him.

"No it doesn't." She raised her eyebrows and nodded to the floor. Tony leaned over the couch a little and frowned. "Oh, well that just happened. But I've been cleaning, I promise."

"Have you, Tony?"

"Yeah." He straightened up on the couch and Pepper stood at an angle. Her arms were still crossed. Tony pursed his lips. "Don't be angry."

"I only asked you to do one thing," she said. "I'm not paying someone to clean the house because that just makes me feel like such a—what the hell is that?!"

She jumped a little as a small disk-like robot bumped against her heel. A confirmation light blinked on it as it moved toward the popcorn. Pepper stared at it.

"You bought a Roomba? Are you kidding me?"

"That is Jarvis, Jr." Tony said. "And he is not a Roomba. I will not have you talking like that about Jarvis's child."

Pepper looked at him like he was crazy. He'd seen that look many times. It didn't faze him anymore. He smiled proudly as the little scarlet and gold robot hummed across the floor, sucking up popcorn as it went.

"Jarvis can't have children, Tony. He's a computer. And we would need a_ fleet_ of Roombas to clean this place," Pepper said.

"Well, that's where you're wrong." Tony stooped to pick up Jarvis, Jr. in the middle of cleaning and flipped it over so Pepper could see some of the complicated circuitry. "I made this little guy, and he works on overtime. He was in sleep mode until I spilled the popcorn. He can sense it."

Pepper slumped down on the couch and slung her arm over her eyes. Tony leaned back in the seat and set Jarvis, Jr. on his lap. The little robot started sucking up the popcorn left on the couch between the two of them. Pepper kicked off her shoes and sighed.

"Jarvis, how do you feel about becoming a father?" Tony asked.

"Quite proud, sir," the computer replied.

Pepper made a face. "He's being sarcastic."

"Uh, he can't be sarcastic. He's a computer," Tony replied.

Pepper punched his arm. Hard. He muttered a few curse words as Jarvis, Jr. slid from the couch and plopped to the floor to finish cleaning it. Pepper stared at the television, but didn't really watch it. Tony watched Jarvis, Jr. on the floor.

"So this," Pepper said. "is my life?"

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Yeah."

Pepper squeezed her eyes shut and fake cried a few times. She slumped sideways and her head landed in Tony's lap. She opened her eyes and stared up at him. He fiddled with her ponytail as she spoke.

"It's not staying in our bed."

Tony was disappointed. "I was really hoping you wouldn't say that."

"I'm drawing the line there."

"C'mon, Pep…"

"No."

"He'll keep it clean."

"How dirty do you think I am, Tony?"

"Well. Literally, or…?"

She punched him again, in stomach this time.

"Oww, fine," Tony said. "Jarvis, Jr. won't sleep in our bed. Big meenie."

Pepper closed her eyes. "That's right. I'm just so terrible."

"Absolutely."

"You're so obnoxious."

Tony smiled, took her hand and kissed it. "Ditto."

Her laugh was proof enough that she loved him.

And that he had a good chance to change her mind later on.


	2. Clint and Natasha

A weekend with nothing to do. And by nothing, that meant there were no super villains to defeat, no overelaborate doomsday machines to destroy, no incredibly dangerous and covert assignments for Fury to send them on.

For once.

Clint Barton was looking for Natasha Romanoff, but he couldn't find her. She was the only person on the planet who could hide from him and he never found her in the same place twice. It was a nice day; he figured maybe they could do something normal for a change instead of hang around the Tower all damn day. He had no vacations anymore. Hadn't taken one in years. Clint had a love of the beach and sunshine and it was hell dragging him away from it.

Nat always rolled her eyes whenever he told her about one of his vacations. She was always work, work, work. Now that they had a day off, he wanted to know what she was up to. He was sure half of the agents at SHIELD wanted to know what they were both up to: a lot of them had a bet going that they were going to sleep with each other before the end of the year. Too bad, because Clint knew that money could've been used for something more constructive. He wished people weren't so goddamn dense. He and Nat were friends, partners. He wanted nothing more from her than that.

Wait, that was a lie. He wanted to know what she did for fun.

She wasn't working out, she wasn't in the rafters (secretly spying on Stark because it was hilarious, the shit he said when talked to himself), and she wasn't at the firing range. Clint was at a loss for where she could be. He was all dressed up with nowhere to go (his definition of dressing up was jeans and a sweater), and he was beginning to hate her for not randomly appearing. She did that sometimes.

He headed for her personal quarters, his hands in his pockets. He rarely went to visit her there because if she wanted to talk to him, she would do so in the sparring room or between sessions at the firing range. Plus it made people talk behind their backs. The idiots.

So Clint was surprised to hear music coming from behind the door of her little apartment. He strained his ears and almost laughed. Nat was listening to Adele. Nothing wrong with that, but he had to grin to himself at the thought of her belting out "Rolling in the Deep" in front of a mirror or something. He knocked.

"Who is it?" She sounded surprised. It was subtle in her voice, but he could hear it.

"It's me," Clint said. "I'm bored, you wanna hang out or something?"

He heard shuffling through the door. She turned the music off. Clint frowned as something metallic clanged inside the room; she cursed under her breath, something in Russian he couldn't make out.

"C'mon, Nat. I'm dying, here—this place is lousy with suits and I need some fresh air."

"Clint, I'm a little _busy_."

Her voice was at little too harsh, like a mother who was trying to keep her kids out of the kitchen. He had to laugh. He tried the door and the knob twisted in his hand. He smelled a waft of cinnamon—wait. Cinnamon? What in the hell was that about? Clint opened the door and stepped inside.

"Natasha, seriously, I just—"

His words died instantly on his tongue. From where he stood, he could see into her kitchen. A neat line of homemade pies lined the counter next to the sink. They each steamed and glistened with various fillings: dull purple blueberry, cardinal red cherry. Clint smelled apple pie—his favorite—and stared as Natasha turned from the stove with the freshly baked culprit in her hands. She wore a black and white polka-dotted sundress.

And a pearl necklace.

Clint lost it. He laughed so hard he slumped against the wall, his voice so loud her expression dropped into the familiar deadly scowl that looked completely out of place at the moment. She put down the pie, slammed the door closed behind him, and seized him by the collar. She still wore an oven mitt on one hand, but in no way softened her grip.

"Shut up," she said. "Shut your mouth, Clint."

He kept on laughing. Tears streaked his cheeks. She set her jaw and stuffed the oven mitt in his open mouth. He finally regained his composure after a few minutes. His stomach hurt from the spasms of laughter. Natasha glared at him. Clint spat out the oven mitt and wiped at his eyes. He coughed a few times and giggled. He staggered to his feet and leaned against the jamb of the kitchen. Natasha glared at him as she walked past. Her high heels clicked against the linoleum.

"Oh shit," Clint said with a grin. "Lucy, you got some 'splainin to do."

He didn't have time to brace himself against the impact of a blueberry pie into his face.


End file.
